


Not Quite Dead

by Centeris2



Series: Evergray's Followers [1]
Category: Star Stable
Genre: Gen, Rated teen for language, Rebecca Has Friends AU, aka Evergray's Followers Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 22:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16206734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Centeris2/pseuds/Centeris2
Summary: After dying and meeting Garnok (literally) Rebecca catches up her friends and fellow conspirators.(Anna Bravewood belongs to Cindersly and Louisa McBurg to Burgie) (may get more chapters? may write more connecting to this as other individual works? organizing is hard)





	Not Quite Dead

Rebecca had a difficult time convincing the Silverglade vet to patch her up, which was understandable. Rebecca and Midnightwarrior had reached Silverglade early in the morning after a less than successful mission to the Dark Core platform, both of them looking exhausted. Rebecca looked especially terrible, she was messy and wet and overall looked like she had drowned.

Which, technically speaking, she had. 

When Rebecca showed the vet her chest and revealed a bullet hole and strange black ooze the vet nearly fainted, but with a bit of persuasion the vet had taken her inside and stitched her up after cleaning out the wound. The pain and bleeding had returned as soon as the black ooze was removed, Rebecca suspecting the black slime from Garnok the only thing that had kept the wound from killing her on the way here. Again. It was confusing.

She had no idea what had happened to Justin, she assumed he had gotten back safe. She hoped the others would know, and so with her body now patched up so she wouldn’t bleed out she made her way to Valedale. 

“So how’d it- what the fuck happened!?” Anna demanded when Rebecca slipped into the Evergray’s Followers safe house. Her question had changed mid sentence when she saw how terrible Rebecca looked.

“We saw Justin come back without you, and Midnight busted up the stable and vanished, we thought…” Louisa didn’t hide her concern.

“Shit happened, weird shit. Justin’s back? Where?” Rebecca asked, taking off her jacket and digging in the closet for her uniform. She had left her deep red outfit here, black much better for sneaking around in the shadows. 

“What!?” Evergray demanded, startled from his reading by Anna throwing a blanket over his head while Rebecca changed. 

“Justin went to the druids before we could stop him, but seriously, what happened,” Louisa asked, pointing to the bandages around Rebecca’s chest.

“We confirmed Concorde was not on the oil rig, but we couldn’t get through the encryption,” Rebecca began the debriefing as she changed into the maroon outfit, Evergray remaining under the blanket. If there was one thing he had learned about Rebecca it was that modesty did not matter to her around friends. 

“But Syntax and Gretchen both worked on that decryptor, what on earth-” Anna said, sitting next to Rebecca once Rebecca sat down.

“It wasn’t earth. We knew there was a risk that they’d be using technology linked to Pandoria that we wouldn’t be able to hack into. The layout and security cameras confirmed Concorde was no longer held on the oil rig. No surprise,” Rebecca muttered, glancing at Louisa when she spoke.

“We suspected they would move Concorde,” Louisa pointed out, though it wasn’t comforting.

“Which is good,” Anna added, “not really good, finding Concorde would have been better… Oh! Evergray, you can take that off now,” Anna realized she had left the blanket on his head and he had kept it on.

“I can read with it on,” he muttered, the pink from his eye enough light to read by even under a cover.

“I met Garnok,” Rebecca said, getting Evergray to throw the blanket off and look at her.

“Concorde wasn’t there, we couldn’t get access to the information on his whereabouts, but we were able to get the kallstone charges set. They were detonated, the oil rig should be in shambles if not completely collapsed. We need to get to Justin to find out what damage was done.”

“They’re not going to keep him in his original prison, he’ll be moved to a different location,” Evergray pointed out. 

“You didn’t see?” Louisa asked.

“They buffed up security, more heavily armed, I got shot and fell,” Rebecca pointed to her chest where they had seen the bandages. “Do we have water?”

“Rebecca, we know you are American, and we love you anyway, but could you not do the whole American shoot up thing?” Anna asked pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Here,” Louisa tossed a bottle to Rebecca who took a drink.

“Thank you! Now, that’s when I got separated from Justin. I’m guessing he got the flare off and got picked up by the boat. I died,” Rebecca said as though she was talking about the weather.

“You don’t look dead,” Anna muttered, poking Rebecca’s face.

“That’s where Garnok comes in. I don’t really know, I guess I was like still somehow aware as I was sinking into the ocean, but Garnok helped me, either brought me back from death or just, never left me die?”

“Garnok helped?” Anna asked slowly, everyone looking at Rebecca in confusion.

“Yeah, he like, held me in his tentacles and brought me down to him in the ocean floor. Or below it? It was weird. And he sang to me. Look,” Rebecca groaned and rolled her eyes, “I know it sounds like a freaky tentacle hentai but it wasn’t sexual at all. Garnok hurt himself to help me, there were these magic seals keeping him in place, druid symbols. He could reach tentacles through it but they like, withered? He was clearly in pain when he reached out to hold me. Oh!” Rebecca stood up and went to where she had dropped her backpack while changing clothes.

“This was what his tentacles left behind, it kept the pain away and stopped the bleeding, and I guess also somehow kept the deep sea pressure from killing me?” Rebecca said uncertainly as she pulled out the jar of black slime the sailors had collected and handed it to Evergray, standing and eagerly reaching out for it.

“Fascinating!” Evergray exclaimed, taking it and sitting down with it at the table to inspect it.

“Garnok is all alone down there, hurt and scared. It was like… it felt like I had found a child trapped in a basement. But he told me I was safe, he sang about protecting me… kind of. It was singing, but not really words? It was feelings and vibrations I felt more than I heard. I just knew he was singing to comfort me and protect me,” Evergray had opened the jar and was sniffing the ooze, not touching it yet until they had a better set up to test it.

“So, if Garnok helped you, and he didn’t ask for anything in return?” Rebecca shook her head to Louisa’s question, “then is he really this ancient embodiment of evil? Pure evil shouldn’t be able to help and hurt itself unless it gets something back, right?”

“I would assume so. There was no doubt Garnok is something very old and very powerful, but I didn’t feel any malice from him,” Rebecca shrugged.

“But you said there were druid symbols, seals, trapping him. Why would they try to keep him down there if he wasn’t a threat?” Anna asked, not because she was about to defend the Keepers of Aideen, but because she wanted to understand the logic.

“Garnok wants to go home, back to his family and... “ Rebecca trailed off looking down and sitting on the ground, resting her head in her hands.

“And?” Anna proded.

“Aideen.”

“Aideen? Why would-?” Anna stammered while Louisa asked, “Aren’t they enemies?”

“I don’t think Garnok sees Aideen as an enemy, he missed her along with missing home. LIke I said, it felt like he was a child, he just… like he felt super ancient like something that has existed since the beginning of time but he just felt so scared and homesick, it was childlike.”

“Maybe Garnok is young,” Anna muttered, adding when the others looked at her to explain, “when you are an immortal being, well, this sounds dumb. When you live forever wouldn’t it take you a very long time to grow up and mature? The like, 15 billion years or whatever that this universe has existed is, compared to eternity, very little time at all. And with other dimensions who knows how long existence has actually, uh, existed? Words are hard,” Anna mumbled at the end, rubbing the back of her neck. 

“You’re right, that does sound dumb saying it aloud,” Louisa stiffled a chuckle and continued, “but you are right. We don’t know how old Garnok is, and even if he is older than the Earth itself that’s still nothing to a timeless being. But also: if Garnok wants to go home and has family and friends… Does that mean there are other things like Garnok?”

“That’s concerning, especially if Garnok is a child,” Anna considered, thinking of how powerful something that gave birth to Garnok would have to be. 

“And why would the druids imprison him? He’s not malicious, he just wants to go home,” Rebecca reminded them on the druids, making them glance at Evergray.

“Some of that was in my lungs you know,” Rebecca informed him as he got his face dangerously close to the goo.

“Any insight?” Louisa prodded Evergray.

“Garnok is an ancient evil who has committed some evil crime and has to be forever imprisoned. That’s what the druids teach. Curious, isn’t it?” Evergray looked at them with a smirk.

“So, I, uh, okay Garnok didn’t make me do this, but I promised Garnok I would help him. I just!” Rebecca cried before they could say anything, “I felt so bad for him! How could I not promise to help him? He’s just so scared and lonely and trapped in the dark and he hates it!”

“That’s a better reason to help someone than most people on Jorvik have,” Anna chuckled.

“Are you going to tell the druids?” Louisa asked.

“I don’t think so, I already broke Justin out of prison for a crazy mission, I don’t want to make the druids any angrier than they already will be at me,” Rebecca winced.

“Wait, so, Justin was gone when you met Garnok…” Louisa thought, voice trailing off.

“Yeah? Oh… yeah. Last Justin saw me I was, uh, shot through the chest and plummeting into the ocean below the Dark Core platform. He thinks I’m dead,” Rebecca realized.

“Should we keep them thinking that?” Louisa asked.

“What, like, hide me here for a few days? I mean... I could hide out here, experiment and test this stuff, work on some theories, and let the druids think I’m dead. Maybe we can fool Dark Core into thinking I’m dead as well.”

The idea was discussed, and the mission gone over in great detail. Notes were taken, and Rebecca drew everything she remembered, trying to record as much information as possible. Meeting Garnok had changed everything for Evergray and his followers, and left them with more questions.


End file.
